There is one Lawgiver.  In the beginning, God.  In the end, God, all in all.

CHAPTER II — SHINT[=O]:  MYTHS AND RITUAL

    “In the great days of old,
     When o’er the land the gods held sov’reign sway,
     Our fathers lov’d to say
     That the bright gods with tender care enfold
     The fortunes of Japan,
     Blessing the land with many an holy spell: 
     And what they loved to tell,
     We of this later age ourselves do prove;
     For every living man
     May feast his eyes on tokens of their love.”

     —­Poem of Yamagami-no Okura,
       A.D. 733.

    Baal:  “While I on towers and banging terraces,
    In shaft and obelisk, behold my sign. 
    Creative, shape of first imperious law.”

    —­Bayard Taylor’s “Masque of the Gods.”

“Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them, and tookest thy broidered garments, and coveredst them:  and thou hast set mine oil and mine incense before them.  My meat also which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed thee, thou hast even set it before them for a sweet savor:  and thus it was, saith the Lord GOD.”—­Ezekiel.

If it be said (as has been the case), ’Shintoism has nothing in it,’ we should be inclined to answer, ’So much the better, there is less error to counteract.’  But there is something in it, and that ... of a kind of which we may well avail ourselves when making known the second commandment, and the ’fountain of cleansing from all sin.’”—­E.W.  Syle.

    “If Shint[=o] has a dogma, it is purity.”—­Kaburagi.

    “I will wash my hands in innocency, O Lord:  and so will I go to
    thine altar.”—­Ps. xxvi. 6.

CHAPTER II — SHINT[=O]:  MYTHS AND RITUAL

The Japanese a Young Nation.

What impresses us in the study of the history of Japan is that, compared with China and Korea, she is young.  Her history is as the story of yesterday.  The nation is modern.  The Japanese are as younger children in the great family of Asia’s historic people.  Broadly speaking, Japan is no older than England, and authentic Japanese history no more ancient than British history.  In Albion, as in the Honorable Country, there are traditions and mythologies that project their shadows aeons back of genuine records; but if we consider that English history begins in the fifth, and English literature in the eighth century, then there are other reasons besides those commonly given for calling Japan “the England of the East.”

No trustworthy traditions exist which carry the known history of Japan farther back than the fifth century.  The means for measuring and recording time were probably not in use until the sixth century.  The oldest documents in the Japanese language, excepting a few fragments of the seventh century, do not antedate the year 712, and even in these the Chinese characters are in many instances used phonetically, because the meaning of the words thus transliterated had already been forgotten.  Hence their interpretation in detail is still largely a matter of conjecture.